Category: Advocacy

We gathered more than 90 kids this past week in Washington D.C. as part of our 10th annual Advocacy Summit. The kids met with their members of Congress and wrote blog posts, made videos and visual media to help spread the word about the nutrition crisis that children are facing around the world. Here’s what they had to say:

Imagine looking at a banana and not knowing what it was. This is how Colby felt before he joined Save the Children’s after school program. Colby is one of 3.6 million kids that live in “food deserts,” areas where there is no fresh food.

Thanks to Save the Children’s after school program each year, 16,500 children, like Colby, have an opportunity to be exposed to healthy foods. However, there is still more work to be done! Children living in remote and rural areas have to drive twenty or more miles to a grocery store, or have to shop for all their food at a local gas station.

Save the Children held their 10th annual Advocacy Summit to inform and give youth tools to influence friends, family, and members of Congress to address this malnutrition epidemic. How can you help? Call your local member of Congress and tell them to protect funding for critical nutrition and health programs for children in the United States and around the world. Congressmen aren’t scary! Give them a call.

Check out these personal messages from the authors of this post:

“I came to the Advocacy Day because I feel that awareness of global issues like malnutrition is the first step to making changes to how Congress responds to the massive funding needs.” ~ Chris Bertaut – Garland, TX

“I am interested in the issue of malnutrition in America because I feel that even though America is supposed to be this great power where everything is possible and the people are healthy, malnutrition is a preventable problem that is being ignored by this country’s leaders. I have been taught to expect more from US.” ~Elena Crouch – Chevy Chase, MD

“I came to the Save the Children summit to be a part of the solution to ending malnutrition in children around the world. I am being a voice to the voiceless and lending help to the helpless.” ~ Helena McCraw, Chicago, IL

“I came to Save the Children’s youth advocacy day because I am doing work around food justice and this will give me the opportunity to learn more about malnutrition. I feel like our country is falling and there needs to be a change!” ~George Walley-Sephes, Philadelphia, PA

Join these youth advocates, click here to urge Congress to make child nutrition a priority

As I celebrated Thanksgiving with my extended family this weekend, eating from a huge spread, sharing updates and stories and generally catching up at a big family gathering, I also thought about the many kids and families Save the Children works with all around the world and right here in the United States. I knew their lives were totally different from my own three kids’ and those of my many nieces and nephews. My sons and

The AIDS epidemic reached 30 this year and though there has been a huge amount of progress here in the U.S., the story in Africa is a vastly different one. On the continent, women and children are the main victims of the disease with the fastest growth of infection rate now among women and youth. Over 22 million are affected across Africa.

When you see the face of HIV/AIDs in countries like Ethiopia, it is often through the eyes of a child, like the kids I met on a trip to the “transportation corridor” between Addis Ababa, the capital, and the trade hub of Awassa.

I just got off the phone with my Congressman’s office. You see, Congress is in the midst of deciding spending levels for 2012, and I wanted to make sure my voice was heard. Some members of Congress want to cut foreign assistance programs by as much as 30 percent, which would have devastating consequences for children and families around the globe. I couldn’t stand by and watch that happen.